Oxygen in the air is well known to cause damaging rust on cars through a process known as oxidation. Similarly, a research group at Lund University in Sweden, has now identified that certain cells during embryonic development ...

Many living creatures possess exceptional abilities that set them apart from other species. Cheetahs can run up to 60 miles per hour; ants can lift 100 times their body weight; flatworms can regrow amputated body parts. Scientists ...

This week marked the 20th anniversary of the birth of arguably the most famous sheep that ever chewed grass. Dolly was created at The Roslin Institute, Scotland, which receives long-term strategic funding from BBSRC.

A new procedure developed at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) may revolutionize the culturing of adult stem cells. In their report that has been published online prior to its appearance in the August 6 issue of Cell Stem ...

Adult stem cells represent a sort of blank clay from which a myriad of different cell and tissue types are molded and as such are of critical importance to health, aging and disease. In tissues that turn over rapidly, such ...

Researchers from the Vavilov Institute of General Genetics, Research Institute of Physical Chemical Medicine and Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) have concluded that reprogramming does not create differences ...

A scientific study describes for the first time the function of a signalling pathway –particularly, the pathway of epidermal growth factor receptors (EGFR) - in the differentiation of the planarian digestive lineage. EGFR ...

Induced pluripotent stem cells hold promise for regenerative medicine because they can, in theory, turn into any type of tissue and because they are made from a patient's own adult cells, guaranteeing compatibility. However, ...

In a new Cell Reports paper, a team led by John P. Cooke, M.D., Ph.D., of the Houston Methodist Research Institute, has identified and characterized a biological factor critical to the transformation of adult somatic cells ...

Adult stem cell

Adult stem cells are undifferentiated cells, found throughout the body after embryonic development, that multiply by cell division to replenish dying cells and regenerate damaged tissues. Also known as somatic stem cells (from Greek Σωματικóς, meaning of the body), they can be found in juvenile as well as adult animals and humans.

Scientific interest in adult stem cells has centered on their ability to divide or self-renew indefinitely, and generate all the cell types of the organ from which they originate, potentially regenerating the entire organ from a few cells. Unlike embryonic stem cells, the use of adult stem cells in research and therapy is not considered to be controversial as they are derived from adult tissue samples rather than destroyed human embryos. They have mainly been studied in humans and model organisms such as mice and rats.